1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for implementing a help function of an OSD menu in a digital television receiver.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, a digital television receiver has an on screen display (OSD) menu function. With the trend of a complicated structure and function of the digital television receiver, its description is required. Most of the description of the structure and function of the digital television receiver is provided in a manual type. Since the OSD function can allow a user to more conveniently implement a desired function, it is a general tendency that the OSD function rather than the manual type is used. In other words, the user can use a help function of a desired item on the OSD of a screen without checking the manual.
Related art technologies for displaying a help description of a desired menu on a screen of a display device will now be described.
In the most general display method, the OSD menu is displayed. Whenever one item of the OSD menu is indicated by a cursor, a corresponding help description is always displayed on some area of the screen. However, in this method, titles and help descriptions of external elements of the digital television receiver are only displayed on the screen. That is, configurations of the external elements are not displayed on the screen. Recently, with increase of the complexity of the digital television receiver, a method for installing, setting, and using the receiver has become also complicated. Moreover, it was difficult for the users to understand detailed parts of the external elements consisting of complicated terminals and pins such as rear and front panels, with only a brief description of a conventional help function.
According to another related art method, an on/off function serves to display and erase the help description on the screen through the OSD menu area. At this time, if an on function of the help description is implemented on the OSD menu, the help description is always displayed on a partial area of the screen. As the screen is partially covered, the user cannot view a partial area of the displayed program. For this reason, the description of installation, setting, and external appearance of equipments not included in the OSD menu and the description of buttons of a remote controller had to depend on the manual.
According to other related art, the help description is provided independently from the OSD menu area. In this case, if the user implements the help-on function, the whole screen including the displayed program screen and the OSD menu area is completely covered with the help description. Therefore, the user cannot view a desired help description while implementing the OSD menu function. Also, since the help description is no more than a brief description of the whole function of the external elements, it was difficult for the users to exactly understand a function of each external element.